- 1 year ago
When it comes to plug-in hybrids, they tend to be pretty pricey in comparison to their internal combustion peers. But Jaecoo is hoping to combat that with the 2025 Jaecoo J7 SHS plug-in hybrid, which will launch in Australia soon. Jaecoo hosted us in South Africa for a fuel economy challenge to test the efficiency of the J7 SHS.
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:40
Interior: 03:30
Driving: 05:43
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Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:40
Interior: 03:30
Driving: 05:43
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
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MotorTranscript
00:00G'day, I'm Paul. We have so many car brands coming to Australia. One of the latest that
00:04is going to be coming is called Jayku. So it's part of the onslaught of Chinese brands
00:09that are coming to take on competitors like the Toyota RAV4, Mazda CX-5. So there's going
00:14to be a lot of variety to choose from. We're in South Africa driving a new version of the
00:19Jayku J7. It's a plug-in hybrid. This is coming to Australia later this year. We don't know
00:23the full details or the pricing just yet, but today I'm going to give you as much information
00:27as we can today. We're going to go for a drive in this as well, and we're also taking part
00:31in a fuel economy challenge that I'll run you through in a second. If you do want to skip
00:34ahead to other parts of this video, you can use the time codes that are on the screen,
00:37or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below.
00:41Okie dokie. So let's talk about exterior design first. So this is around the size of a RAV4,
00:45so mid-size SUV. In terms of the other plug-in hybrid competitors in this segment, we're talking
00:51about the C-Lion 6. We're talking about Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid. It's that sort of vehicle
00:55around a similar size of battery as well. It sits around the 20 kilowatt hour mark in terms of how
01:00much capacity you're going to get. So Jayku sits under the Cherry umbrella. There's a lot of Chinese
01:06brands that have all of these sub-brands, and this is kind of like a premium version of that Cherry
01:11brand. So down the front here, you've got this vertical slated grille. This plug-in hybrid is
01:16front-wheel drive. There is an all-wheel drive version coming, and it's probably going to need it,
01:20and I'll run you through why that is later on. LED headlights down the front here. So you've got the
01:25indicator and running beam up the top there, and then the main headlights down the bottom there.
01:29Around the side here, you've got these eco tyres sitting on 19-inch alloy wheels, and that sort of
01:34alloy wheel design has an eco finish to it as well to, I guess, reduce the amount of resistance you
01:40have as wind catches that. You've got wheel arch protection there. Given that this is available as
01:45an all-wheel drive, I've seen marketing material of this in the sand and stuff like that. Obviously,
01:49you're not going to be doing much off-roading in this, given that it is front-wheel drive,
01:53even in the all-wheel drive version. I don't think it's really catered for off-road driving,
01:57especially given that it doesn't have a huge amount of ground clearance either at around 200
02:00millimetres. Now, around the side here, you've got indicator built into the wing mirror, 360 camera.
02:06You can see Australia down the side there. So part of this fuel economy challenge is trying to achieve
02:101,200 kilometres, which is what this vehicle is capable of doing if you look at the figures on paper.
02:16That is an incredible distance to be able to do out of a petrol vehicle like this. So I'll be keen to see
02:21how that goes. Can't you see as well how the hybrid system interacts once it empties? Because you're
02:26only getting around sort of 90 kilometres of range out of this as a full electric drive. Once you
02:30exceed that, you're going to be running as a hybrid, and it's going to have to then manage charging the
02:34battery and discharging it as you drive. Okay, so around the back of the car, you've got LED
02:39taillights all the way along the back there. Jaycu branding over here, and a diffuser down the bottom
02:45there as well. Sort of pretty tidy design, and the design of the vehicle itself actually looks really
02:50good. I know styling is subjective, but it sort of is that next generation of cherry styling. If you look at
02:55stuff like the Emota 5 in Australia, it kind of still looks a bit sort of old-school cherry styling, whereas
03:01this, this certainly has a lot of that new design vibe, and it just looks really impressive on the road.
03:05It turns a lot of heads, so I'll be keen to see how it goes in Australia. And they've also thought about
03:09stuff like hiding that wiper up the top there as well, integrated within that spoiler, which is pretty good.
03:14Now, in terms of your charging, so you have both AC and DC charging. DC charging up to 40 kilowatts,
03:19AC charging up to 6.6 kilowatts, vehicle to load as well. So, it's a proper sort of fully complemented
03:24plug-in hybrid system. All right, let's jump inside, run you through what the cabin looks like,
03:29and then we'll hit the road. Righto, so we're inside the J7 Phev. I'm just going to run you through
03:35the high-level stuff here. When we do get this back in Australia, we'll do a proper detailed review of
03:40this, so you can get a better feel for it. But this looks, this looks really impressive. So,
03:45I mentioned before, we don't know exact pricing just yet. We do know that the regular J7, so the
03:50internal combustion version, is going to be priced at around the sort of $40,000 mark drive away.
03:55They're thinking that this is going to be under $50,000 or thereabouts drive away. I don't know
04:00what spec we're getting in Australia, but if it looks anything like this, I mean, that is going to
04:04be the bargain of the century, given that you've got a screen here that's over 13 inches in size with
04:09really decent infotainment system. Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, all the sort of features you'd
04:14expect it to have in-built navigation. It really is just a good infotainment system that's easy to
04:19use on the move, which is good. Unfortunately, no physical buttons for stuff like climate controls,
04:24and it is quite frustrating if you are in smartphone mirroring to have to then go out of
04:28smartphone mirroring and go into the climate controls to change settings, because it just is
04:32a little bit fiddly. Head of the driver, another screen there as well to give you critical
04:36information, and then a head-up display as well. So, a fair bit of stuff there. Wireless phone
04:41charging, lots of storage too. Cooled centre console. They have thought about everything here,
04:45and it is a really sort of decent-looking interior. They have other colour options available globally
04:50here for the South African market, so I don't know if we'll get those in Australia, but if we can,
04:55I mean, you're getting then darker brown-coloured interiors to match these heated and cooled seats,
05:00so they really have crammed in as much as they can. Second row. We spent a bit of time
05:04getting chauffeured around in the second row as well, and there is loads of room back there,
05:08so you've got adjustments for the seats, heaps of leg and headroom, toe room. It doesn't feel as
05:13cramped in the second row as something like a CX-5, so there is enough room there to stretch out.
05:17As a family vehicle, it's sort of fairly ideal. Luggage space as well. Pretty surprised by that.
05:22We had two giant suitcases plus another pair of suitcases on top of it. Easily fit in there,
05:27so big enough to do your day-to-day stuff. It even has the ability to convert your cargo blind
05:33into a projector screen, which I thought was quite a sort of cool innovation there to sort of keep
05:38the kids happy if you're out on the road, but let's switch this on. We'll go for a drive, and we'll see
05:43what it's like behind the wheel. Okay, so we have just hit the road in the J7 plug-in hybrid, so let's
05:50talk about the drivetrain first. So it is basically the engine that is the go-to for a lot of Chinese
05:55market cars. One and a half litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine. That mates to an electric
05:59motor and this 18.3 kilowatt hour battery to give you a plug-in hybrid. Now, it's interesting because
06:06it can work as a series hybrid, parallel hybrid, can run on EV-only mode. It has a deep discharge
06:13EV mode as well. As we learned with the Shark, if you really sort of get stuck into energy use,
06:20you are limited at some point in terms of your battery drain, and this is the same, but what
06:24they've done is allowed you to go further into that discharge range to get you more range, and
06:30that's because they're targeting a 1,300 kilometre drive cycle, which is pretty incredible when you
06:35think about it. That is what was reserved previously for efficient diesels, whereas now being able to get
06:41that out of a small petrol engine plus a battery, I think it's a pretty impressive setup. There is a
06:45caveat though, and I should mention as well that we're filming this at the end of our economy
06:49challenge, so we have done 1,200 kilometres to attack. It is achievable, but given it was a
06:55challenge, we had to drive quite gently, and some of the other countries that are here
06:59were doing crazy stuff like, you know, 60 k's an hour in an 80 zone or a 100 zone to achieve those
07:06numbers, whereas we sort of just went, no, let's just drive normally, and driving normally, we're able
07:09to achieve some pretty impressive figures there, which is what makes this feel like an actual
07:14genuine fuel-efficient car, even when the battery runs out, because we haven't charged the battery at all.
07:19Now, what does all that feel like behind the wheel? It's interesting. If you are sort of going sort
07:25of fairly slow, and you stand on the throttle, you get a nice surge of torque. It's 255 kilowatts
07:30of power, over 500 newton metres of torque, but it's front-wheel drive, and that presents a couple
07:35of issues if you nail it from a standing start. It has a fair bit of torque steer, and you need to be
07:39on top of it. It's not crazy, but to combat that torque steer, they've given the steering a fairly
07:44light feel, and as a result of that, you don't really get a great deal of feel through the steering
07:48wheel. They've got a slow return to centre, so when you're pulling out of a street or something
07:52like that, it is really slow to come back to centre, and I think this is all stuff they've
07:57had to dial in to combat the amount of torque steer that you're going to get with this type
08:01of power. In terms of 0 to 100 times, Jaycu claims a number of about sort of 8.5 seconds,
08:06so it is sort of fairly quick. It won't pull your face off, but it is fairly quick. The
08:10other car that's here that we haven't had a chance to drive and hasn't been confirmed
08:14for Australia yet, monkeys running across the road here, is the C9 plug-in hybrid. That
08:21is a tri-motor plug-in hybrid, and it makes like 1,000 newton metres of torque or something
08:26like that, and that is a performance vehicle, and has torque on the rear, which means it
08:31doesn't have that level of torque steer, so it'd be pretty exciting if that came to Australia.
08:36Now, let's talk about ride and handling. It's a little bit tricky to gauge, because the roads
08:40here along the Western Cape of South Africa are fantastic, really well maintained, very
08:44smooth, so on these roads, it's great. We've actually done some gravel road driving as well,
08:49and that was some fairly serious stuff in terms of potholes and corrugations, and it seemed
08:54to handle that well also, which means it has a softer suspension tune. When we do get
08:59this in Australia, we'll take it to the proving ground and run it through our standard tests,
09:02and I'll be keen to understand whether it has that same feel behind the wheel once we
09:07do a test of back home. In terms of road noise, it's all sort of fairly okay. Course chip roads,
09:12it does seem to come into the cabin quite a bit. You really don't hear a lot out of the
09:15engine. Even when you sort of get stuck into it, it really doesn't make a great deal of sound.
09:21It's really quick to respond, gets up and moves, but it doesn't make a racket inside the car,
09:26so they've done a good job there in terms of suppressing the amount of noise that comes out
09:30of that engine bay. Okay, so that has been your first look at the Jaycu J7 plug-in hybrid. We're
09:36going to be driving the internal combustion version really soon, and we're going to be driving the
09:41plug-in hybrid version when it does finally arrive in Australia this year. We don't know the pricing
09:46yet, but like I said, it is going to be around hopefully that $50,000 mark, which means it
09:51represents some really good value for money, and I'm excited to have a proper driver back home.
09:55So if you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and share it with your mates,
09:59and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the channel and press the bell icon. But until next time,
10:04take it easy.
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